


A dream within a dream

by Arithanas



Category: Little Women Series - Louisa May Alcott
Genre: Angst, Canon Related, F/M, First Meetings, Hopeful Ending, Soul Bond, Soulmates, temporary disability
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-25
Updated: 2019-12-25
Packaged: 2021-02-25 23:14:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,290
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21933559
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Arithanas/pseuds/Arithanas
Summary: With a weak body and an even weaker will, Jo peered down the balustrade and stole a glimpse of the man who was a dream within a dream.
Relationships: Friedrich Bhaer/Josephine March
Comments: 12
Kudos: 55
Collections: Yuletide 2019





	A dream within a dream

**Author's Note:**

  * For [SingerQueen](https://archiveofourown.org/users/SingerQueen/gifts).



Josephine March was a romantic at heart, she couldn’t help it. Since her first years, romantic literature had been her main source of nutrition, and she never wanted another. In her younger years, she had been wondering who her soulmate could be in a youthful, playful way. The older she got, the less playful the question became, because now, the world was larger than her and her youthful worries. Her spirit longed for adventure—and for the mundane. The older she got, the more the world lost its luster, and while it perplexed her, it didn’t hinder life. There was no reason to connect these two facts that had become the central pillars of her life. 

While she preserved her romantic ideas intact, her body kept failing her, little by little. At first, it was her sense of taste, which was such a little loss that Jo barely registered it. All food tasted almost the same, but there was nothing she could complain about. War was the main concern for everyone and complaining about having nothing tasty to eat seemed ungrateful. Amy kept complaining about not having anything good to eat, but Jo just felt a burning desire to go and help the war effort.

Her sense of touch was the next one to go and neither cold or warmth could affect her. It was a dangerous sense to lose because she stopped feeling exertion and pain. It was a sad fact that damage could pile up despite the lack of sensations. 

The lack of smell was a blessing and Jo never missed the smell of boiling cabbage or the stench of rotting slop. She regretted something when she noticed Beth didn’t smell like her usual mixture of fresh bread, burnt beeswax, and flowers, but she had the memory of that fragrance, which should be enough to steel herself against the continuous dampening of the world around her. 

Her vision turned gray and again, Jo didn’t bother to make a comment. A dull vision didn’t present a complication to her little tasks. Socks were mended with the right thread, and her pen still danced gracefully over the paper. Writing stirring stories was more vital now, a way to liven up the life that each day felt more oppressive and wearisome.

Her hearing started to fade by the time she seized the chance to take a trip to New York. Should she be less hindered by her lack of senses, Jo would've been less eager to face a city so full of people, so aggressive to the somewhat naive nature of a country girl, but at first blush, New York was dull, gray and almost boring. She felt obtunded, which was almost a blessing, as she could devote her energy to imagining a world full of all the things she’d had in her younger years.

She unpacked her little valise and, following Mrs. Kirke’s implied invitation to tea, she attempted to go downstairs when the most surprising thing happened to her.

A sound reached her ear and shook her core. Jo rested her hand on the finial of the stairs, feeling her heartbeat crashing against her ribs, stealing her breath. If something as prosaic as a footstep could be considered a harbinger of a new life, poetry would have a hard time weaving the most modest tapestry of great emotion.

It definitely was a footfall on wood that belonged to a heavy person climbing up. A second footfall followed the first, as loud, as clear, as terrifying as the first. Jo felt her knees buckling and her legs as tottering as a young sapling of an apple tree. She suddenly felt her shoulders hurt and her head pound.

The walls were definitely cream-colored, the carpet beneath her feet was green and the wood where her hand rested was blond with red streaks that ran to the carefully polished knobs of the rail. The dress that covered her quivering frame was of the most unappealing chestnut brown. A small ray of sunset light crept from the high window falling on top of the red hair of that little servant girl dressed in a tattered blue gown, lumbering up to the place Jo stood. She was carrying a heavy load of the blackest coal Jo had ever seen in a battered, blackened hod. 

On any other day, Jo would have rushed to help the servant girl, for it was a heavy load to carry over those long flights of stairs. This day, however, Jo was too distracted by the taste of blood inside her mouth: She had been biting her lips in fright because she was sure she had lost the good sense that people said belonged to all the daughters of Marmee March. 

Either a miracle was happening—and she was in the right to stand transfixed in her place— or she had been deceived by her senses— and she should be commended for suffering all without any sound. Jo’s sense for adventure was temporarily curtailed because she had never felt so many sensations at the same time. 

A man appeared in the landing and the sound of the fated footfall repeated, almost making her heart explode inside her breast. He smiled to the servant girl and picked up the hod from her pale hands covered in angry red chilblains. The footsteps approached Jo, louder, heavier and more ominous.

The man was a big bear, dark, short and dense. His white shirt would've hurt Jo's eyes had she not had the refuge of his dark tie and the dark splats of spilled ink on his hands. He smiled and light climbed up to his honey-colored eyes. Those eyes were way richer than the treasures inside of the beehives.

He passed by her side, delivering more noise to Jo’s eyes and the aroma of hot flesh, of dry pages, of the smoke of a fire. The mixture was nigh intoxicating and Jo almost felt how the legs beneath her almost refused to hold her weight. 

This strange image of a man laid down his load next to the first door he found, which, coincidentally, was Jo’s. The little servant girl passed in front of Jo too, without taking notice of the turmoil inside Jo’s breast.

“It goes better so,” the man said, and the deep, rich tone of his voice delivered another blow to poor Jo’s assaulted senses. It was so different from the inane prattle of American youth. “The little back is too young to haf such heaviness.”

The little servant girl smiled and rushed to light a fire on Jo’s room, dragging the coal hod to the best of her abilities. The man nodded his greetings and start to climb down the steps. Jo counted each of them and by the time she counted seven, the sound started to get muted; by fourteen, it was just a dream of a dream. 

Jo had her eyes open and witnessed how her world lost color and light, smell and sound. The episode passed through her but the image persisted. Jo couldn’t even start to understand what had happened, but what remained inside her was not the gloom of a world lost to her senses but the hankering to experience it again. 

With a weak body and an even weaker will, Jo peered down the balustrade and stole a glimpse of the man who was a dream within a dream. Marmee and Beth had to hear about this man, and Father without any doubt would praise the good action, but first Jo had some discreet questions to ask Mrs. Kirke.

There would be time to deal with the confusion of feelings within her head. For the time being, Jo March was happy and hopeful.

**Author's Note:**

> ExtraPenguin made their best to help with all the mistakes, any remaining error is this author's fault.


End file.
